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That in no way invalidates Dave's thoughts as well as mine and others of course: Repeating nonsense does not change the fact that it is nonsense.

https://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/a11332.htmlCan space exist by itself without matter or energy around?
No. Experiments continue to show that there is no 'space' that stands apart from space-time itself...no arena in which matter, energy and gravity operate which is not affected by matter, energy and gravity. General relativity tells us that what we call space is just another feature of the gravitational field of the universe, so space and space-time do not exist apart from the matter and energy that creates the gravitational field. This is not speculation, but sound observation.

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Tiny pet peeve here, you have shifted the implied subject and refied an abstraction. In so doing, you have made a conventional but essentially false statement. Rather than saying GR tells us how it is, it is an important distinction that GR is a model which predicts future states of affairs of certain measurable parameters from observations of those measured parameters including their dynamics. Gravity is a relationship, not a thing. You can not point to a gravity nor can you experience gravity. You experience sensation and model aspects of that sensation using the idea of gravity.

Lest we forget that science doesn't grant reality, it grants predictions. The former is fundamentalist religion, the latter is science.

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Lest we forget that science doesn't grant reality, it grants predictions. The former is fundamentalist religion, the latter is science.

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Agreed basically, but if you go through this thread, you will see it is as is usual with river, an argument against anything held by mainstream, and in its place claiming debunked scenarios such as Plasma/Electric universe [his favourite anti mainstream substitute] and any other number of contradictory substitutes. Gravity of course is simply spacetime geometry.

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Agreed basically, but if you go through this thread, you will see it is as is usual with river, an argument against anything held by mainstream, and in its place claiming debunked scenarios such as Plasma/Electric universe [his favourite anti mainstream substitute] and any other number of contradictory substitutes. Gravity of course is simply spacetime geometry.

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Right, it's the curvature of a geometry. IOW, it's a modeled quality used to predict dynamic change in a narrow category of experience. It is not either true or real in some objective god's eye view sense. It is merely the most effective model available. All models - electric universe, 7 day creation, holographic universe (my personal favorite just because it's so weird), GR and the 'fabric' of spacetime, whatever, have no claim to either truth or reality. They are models. They have claim to the quality of their predictions. And yet, by arguing the reality of the most useful of our models, we legitimize cranks and wingnuts to say, "but millions of dead things buried all over the planet is clear evidence for a global flood of Noah". It is the same logic. The actually alert scientifically minded individual would want to "test" the model by using it to form predictions and testing those predictions but that individual just undermined her legitimacy in that regard by calling her model reality and doing the full on map territory meld. And that's exactly why it's a pet peeve. If we disguise the fact that we are talking about a predictive model by calling the model the reality, we legitimize the idea that we can call our favorite model real and replace the requirement that it be superior predictively with the requirement that it align with whatever cherry picked data points best suit our strange and desperate desire to nail a bit of truth down to a secure surface and stand guard over it, never again needing even so much glance at its workings because it's tucked safely away in a permanent and stable location.

If I can sum up this thread after much gobblydook and confused claims....
To the best of our knowledge and according to current mainstream models, the universe is simply the way it is by chance and chance alone. The observable universe is around 95 billion L/years across, and there are billions of galaxies with billions of stars from which life itself evolved. It's all chance. We, life are simply a chemical mixture of elements born in the belly of stars via nuclear synthesisation.
The universe has had 13.8 billion years of variable expansion rate to be as big as it is, simple as that... Put simplistically, space is what separates everything... time is what keeps everything from happening at the same instant. Better known as spacetime, which can be defined as a unified multi-dimensional framework within which it is possible to locate events.. The concept of spacetime follows from the observation that the speed of light is constant and does not vary with the motion of the emitter or the observer. Spacetime allows a description of reality that is common for all observers in the universe, regardless of their relative motion.
If we add to that the following facts that intergalactic space consists of around one H atom per square meter then we see that the majority of spacetime, is indeed nearly empty and of course spacetime/gravity cannot exist without the matter/energy within it.

very good. Again, sorry to pick a nit or take my pet peeve for a walk or whatever, but science as religion is something that just bugs me for the reasons stated earlier. It legitimizes the notion of truth divorced from predictive accuracy and feeds back as negative feedback maintaining the stability of the system whereby everyone argues over who's truth is prettiest to themselves as objective fact.

It is not either true or real in some objective god's eye view sense. It is merely the most effective model available.spacetime, whatever, have no claim to either truth or reality. They are models. They have claim to the quality of their predictions.

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I have never claimed any model is truth or reality....
What I claim is that the current model that most reputable mainstream cosmologists accept, based on the observational empirical evidence available is the best we have.
Sure scientific theories and models are never certain, but just as certain is the fact that they gain in certainty over time and as they continue to make successful predictions.
And as I was informed by a reputable astronomer at one time, any future QGT will nearly certainly encompass the BB theory but obviously also extending the parameters on which the BB is valid.

And yet, by arguing the reality of the most useful of our models, we legitimize cranks and wingnuts

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I disagree with that. So you are effectively saying give the cranks, wingnuts religious fanatics, IDers a fee hand to twist and warp and denigrate whatever area of science they like?
Sure effectively their combined nonsense on any public science forum means SFA in the greater scheme of things, but also as far as that narrow outlet goes, I believe we still need to correct silly claims in light of any young lurkers and such. By the way, since this is my first debate with you, let me inform you now, that I am only a lay person, but one who has read plenty of reputable stuff from Thorne, Begalman, Rees, Hawking Weinburg, Davis and many others.
Plus my only agenda is science and the scientific methodology unlike the many other agendas that flourish on forums such as this..

very good. Again, sorry to pick a nit or take my pet peeve for a walk or whatever, but science as religion is something that just bugs me for the reasons stated earlier.

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No probs, and certainly also others here have also reflected your POV in engaging trolls of which I have been doing today. But I truly disagree with that POV and I certainly understand that partly the fault in engaging them is dragging me and my scientific claims to that level.
The thing is that on another forum where I operate, and the same applies to most of them, the trolls and cranks etc, are not given the free hand they are here. What they put as any claim, must be supported with evidence and if not and the claim is continually made, as my friend river loves to do, they are quickly dispatched and their threads closed.

No probs, and certainly also others here have also reflected your POV in engaging trolls of which I have been doing today. But I truly disagree with that POV and I certainly understand that partly the fault in engaging them is dragging me and my scientific claims to that level.
The thing is that on another forum where I operate, and the same applies to most of them, the trolls and cranks etc, are not given the free hand they are here. What they put as any claim, must be supported with evidence and if not and the claim is continually made, as my friend river loves to do, they are quickly dispatched and their threads closed.

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I agree with the engagement policy and the evideEditnce policy too, but evidence is how we design models. It is their predictive utility that convinces us to adopt them. It is important to keep the models fully in the category of construct I think because no amount of evidence can assure truth. It can only place requirements on the predictive models. There is another thread here about the difference between describing and defining God. It's fine to define god as that which causes hurricanes or lightning. But that doesn't get you anywhere. Once you legitimize the idea that if evidence supports the model's construction then the model is equivalent to reality, then all someone needs to do is like a model and then they can call it reality and once they do that, it's black friday sale on baggage to hang on that reality. Maybe if god causes lightning, God is an agent! If god is an agent then god is a he because women have less agency and then maybe god makes lightning when he's angry and maybe he's angry when people do stuff I don't like and all of that is possible to do because the idea of reality allows us to reify that concept which was without specific quality originally. God is a model which produces hypotheses. Models are comparable through their predictive utility and through inductive sources (alignment with observation). If you can't use god to make predictions, then god isn't a useful hypothesis. There are certain cases where god is an excellent predictive model and in those cases, it is wholly appropriate to use that model because it can inform action with better results. But the alignment with reality bit must also fit. THe right model for the right application and no 3rd person objective truth value should be granted the ontological status of those models because then we are not free to select the more useful model anymore. I tried to summarize too much there because I'm in a hurry but I'll check back in a while to expand.

I agree with the engagement policy and the evideEditnce policy too, but evidence is how we design models. It is their predictive utility that convinces us to adopt them. It is important to keep the models fully in the category of construct I think because no amount of evidence can assure truth. It can only place requirements on the predictive models. There is another thread here about the difference between describing and defining God. It's fine to define god as that which causes hurricanes or lightning. But that doesn't get you anywhere. Once you legitimize the idea that if evidence supports the model's construction then the model is equivalent to reality, then all someone needs to do is like a model and then they can call it reality and once they do that, it's black friday sale on baggage to hang on that reality. Maybe if god causes lightning, God is an agent! If god is an agent then god is a he because women have less agency and then maybe god makes lightning when he's angry and maybe he's angry when people do stuff I don't like and all of that is possible to do because the idea of reality allows us to reify that concept which was without specific quality originally. God is a model which produces hypotheses. Models are comparable through their predictive utility and through inductive sources (alignment with observation). If you can't use god to make predictions, then god isn't a useful hypothesis. There are certain cases where god is an excellent predictive model and in those cases, it is wholly appropriate to use that model because it can inform action with better results. But the alignment with reality bit must also fit. THe right model for the right application and no 3rd person objective truth value should be granted the ontological status of those models because then we are not free to select the more useful model anymore. I tried to summarize too much there because I'm in a hurry but I'll check back in a while to expand.

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I don't think you need to. It is a simple point, that you have already made very well: science deals in predictive models rather than in "truth".

It follows from this that person being dogmatic about the correctness of scientific theories is at risk of looking a fool, at some point in the future. But by the same token, the crank or ignoramus fails to appreciate the importance of the models being predictive, which is where they in turn almost invariably fail.

It is their predictive utility that convinces us to adopt them. It is important to keep the models fully in the category of construct I think because no amount of evidence can assure truth.

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Again, I couldn't agree more. In fact the "truth" or "reality" that anti science adherents love to pretend to want to achieve in all likleyhood does not exist, and if it does exist, maybe completely unobtainable.
By the same token scientific theories do gain in certainty over time: theories such as the BB, SR GR, and in fact who in their right mind would ever doubt the "certainty" of the theory of evolution.
To argue against those theories, to claim they are wrong, in favour of another that has been invalidated and debunked many times, without any new evidence, in the sciences, is against the rules. Report??

Since my resurrection I have made one report and it does not refer to this thread and the troll I have been in debate with. The reason is that while certainly the forum has improved somewhat, [thanks to one mod in particular] reports in the main appear to fall on deaf ears. So generally I don't make them.
I also do not use the "ignore" button. I see that as a cowards way out, and it does not stop the clowns and quacks from spreading their nonsense in the sciences. Perhaps also if more members who are probably more knowledgable than I also made some attempt to refute the nonsense that are often posted in the sciences, may also help to curtail the quacks and clowns.
So yeah, in summing, perhaps if the rules were applied more effectively with regards to nonsense in the sciences, then there would be far less of the nonsense and reasons for continued fruitless exchanges.

I don't think you need to. It is a simple point, that you have already made very well: science deals in predictive models rather than in "truth".

It follows from this that person being dogmatic about the correctness of scientific theories is at risk of looking a fool, at some point in the future. But by the same token, the crank or ignoramus fails to appreciate the importance of the models being predictive, which is where they in turn almost invariably fail.

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Interesting because the BB theory is constantly being " surprised " by what is observed , in the Universe .

Interesting links. All they do is emphasise what science already know, that we do not as yet know for certain what causes FRBs.
Irrespective of course it does not invalidate the BB nor promote any other model.
Thoughts on what they may be range from [1] the moment a BH pops into existence, [2]Colliding highly spinning Neutron stars or a pair with ultra powerful magnetic fields [Magnetars][3] Collapse of Kerr-Newman BHs.
They could also be related somewhat to GRBs.https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.02189.pdf

Interesting links. All they do is emphasise what science already know, that we do not as yet know for certain what causes FRBs.
Irrespective of course it does not invalidate the BB nor promote any other model.
Thoughts on what they may be range from [1] the moment a BH pops into existence, [2]Colliding highly spinning Neutron stars or a pair with ultra powerful magnetic fields [Magnetars][3] Collapse of Kerr-Newman BHs.
They could also be related somewhat to GRBs.https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.02189.pdf

Thoughts on what they may be range from [1] the moment a BH pops into existence, [2]Colliding highly spinning Neutron stars or a pair with ultra powerful magnetic fields [Magnetars][3] Collapse of Kerr-Newman BHs.
They could also be related somewhat to GRBs.https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.02189.pdf